Watch out Usain Bolt and Justin Gatlin: there is a new speed demon in town. During the early hours of Friday morning Trayvon Bromell – a slight, unassuming and God-fearing 19-year-old from Florida – became the fastest teenager in history when he ran 9.84sec for the 100m at the US trials. Incredibly, it also made him the joint 10th fastest athlete ever. On Saturday Bromell also booked his place in the American team for the world championships in Beijing, running a wind-aided 9.76 in the semi-final before finishing second to Tyson Gay in 9.96 in the final.
“That kid is tough,” said Gay after catching an understandably weary Bromell close to the line. “Only being a sophomore, to make the team and handle that pressure is big stuff. He got out good. It was one of those 10 years of experience, dig-down moments. I had to get him.”
Bromell was not too downbeat. “I feel good just to get to go to Beijing for the first time and represent with the big dogs.”
He is only 5ft 8in and he knows the 6ft 5in Usain Bolt will tower over him at the world championships. But he is not scared. “Height don’t mean nothing,” he says. “Everybody says because Bolt is so tall he will always be faster, but I have raced competitors that have been two times taller than me. That hasn’t stopped me then and it ain’t going to stop God either.”
“At the end of the day, God has everything written for everybody. If he wants me to be the fastest, no one on this planet can stop me.”
God has appeared to move in mysterious ways, however. Between 13 and 15 Bromell broke both knees, a forearm, and fractured a hip in three separate incidents. “In eighth grade I was just being dumb, doing backflips and stuff, trying to flip over my friend and I tore my knee,” he says. “Ninth grade that was a basketball tournament and I broke my forearm and other knee. Then in 10th grade I was just running and my left hip just broke. We still don’t know to this day why it happened but everything happens for a reason.”
Those injuries slowed Bromell down but they didn’t stop him. He first broke 10 seconds as a 17-year-old, clocking a high school record of 9.99 in the 100m at the Great Southwest Classic, and while he is still young his potential appears almost limitless.
To put Bromell’s 9.84 into perspective, it is faster than Carl Lewis and Linford Christie’s personal bests and equal to Donovan Bailey’s world record, which lasted from 1996 to 1999. Remember, too, that Gay’s quickest 100m time as a teenager was 10.27, Asafa Powell’s 10.12, Justin Gatlin’s 10.08. And while Bolt was an exceptional 200m runner from an early age, he did not attempt the 100m until he was 20 – when he ran 10.03.
Yet while Bromell has the world at his feet, he doesn’t have his head in the clouds. He is a bright and focused communications student at Baylor University in Texas, which counts the world 400m record holder, Michael Johnson, among its alumni, and plans to get a master’s degree in entertainment and business too.
But Todd Harbour, the Baylor Bears’ head track and field coach, reckons that during the next few years his future lies on the track. “I think he’s going to be a great, great young one,” he says. “And the sport needs that right now with all the negative publicity we’ve had in the last few years.”
Bromell is blessed with impeccable sprinting genes. His father, Cashmere, played American football in the Canadian League while his mum, Shri, was a former high school sprinter. But according to Harbour, Bromell has all the other attributes that a top athlete needs. As he told USA Today: “He’s got the great work ethic. He’s focused. The perspective I think is as big as anything. It’s big for a sprinter.”
“His injuries helped build his character, so success didn’t come easy. He had to work for it. But he remembers the days when he was back there. It keeps him pretty level.”
That character helped him bounce back from a surprise defeat at the prestigious NCAA championships two weeks ago. Bromell went in as favourite in the 100m but lost out to Andre de Grasse, the 20-year-old Canadian, who posted wind-assisted times of 9.75 for the 100m and 19.58 for the 200m. Their rivalry in the next few years could yet replace Bolt and Gatlin’s.
And make no mistake, Bromell intends to make his mark whatever career path he decides to sprint along. “It would be great to be a legend of the sport,” he says, smiling. “But I know God is going to make me a legend whatever I do, even if it is outside track.”
